High school students plan anti-gun violence march on Faso's office

Capital Region high school students protest and rally at the State Capitol for action on stricter gun control measures on the anniversary of the 1999 Columbine High School massacre in Colorado on Friday, April 20, 2018 in Albany, N.Y. (Lori Van Buren/Times Union) less

Capital Region high school students protest and rally at the State Capitol for action on stricter gun control measures on the anniversary of the 1999 Columbine High School massacre in Colorado on Friday, April ... more

Capital Region high school students protest and rally at the State Capitol for action on stricter gun control measures on the anniversary of the 1999 Columbine High School massacre in Colorado on Friday, April 20, 2018 in Albany, N.Y. (Lori Van Buren/Times Union) less

Capital Region high school students protest and rally at the State Capitol for action on stricter gun control measures on the anniversary of the 1999 Columbine High School massacre in Colorado on Friday, April ... more

BETHLEHEM - The high school antigun violence activists say they were inspired by Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.'s historic five-day, 54-mile march from Selma, Alabama to the state capital of Montgomery to organize their 56-mile march next month from Albany to U.S. Rep. John Faso's Kingston office. They will explain to the Republican lawmaker with a National Rifle Association "A" rating that Generation Z aims to be the last to endure school massacres.

And the teenagers will remind Faso that many of them registered to vote in the midterms.

"We have about 150 marchers signed up and even though groups run by adults offered to help us organize this, we said no because it has more impact if the protests are planned and led by high school activists," said Bethlehem High School student Maeve Donnelly, who helped organize the Albany protest on the anniversary of the Columbine High School massacre in April.

Those protests were part of the national March for Our Lives founded by the survivors of the Parkland, Florida, high school massacre that left 17 shot dead in February. The March for Our Lives website lists 10 goals including disarming those convicted of domestic violence and mandatory reporting of stolen guns.

"We cannot allow one more child to be shot at school," the mission statement reads. "We cannot allow one more teacher to make a choice to jump in front of a gun to save the lives of their students. We cannot allow one more family to wait for a call or text that never comes."

Donnelly says the Kingston march aims to build the momentum so that when November arrives, new 18-year-old voters will be excited about casting ballots for candidates who support gun control reform. She is proud that the April protests included hundreds of black, Asian and Latino students and wants the Kingston march to be diverse.

"Troy, Schenectady or Albany students experience more danger in urban neighborhoods from gun violence than suburban schools do," Donnelly said. "It can be difficult when people from different backgrounds reach out to each other. But our generation — we need each other. Joining together makes us stronger and we learn from each other. I want students of all races and ethnicities to feel welcome to organize the planning as well as the marching."

Students in Wisconsin already marched 54 miles to get to Speaker of the House Paul Ryan's office back in April. The Albany-area high school activists raised enough money to hire a U-Haul to carry their sleeping bags and pallets of water for five days. High schools in villages and towns along the way have offered to let the students sleep in their gyms.